Trump on a roll

Yes, Trump was expected to do well on Tuesday, but not only did he do even better than expected, it’s how he did better than expected. Sure, things can change, but he really does seem like he might very well roll to 1237. First, Nate Cohn:

After Tuesday night, Mr. Trump has never had a wider path to a majority of pledged delegates.

He swept the Northeastern corridor by a huge margin, smashing any and all expectations based on primaries to date. He won a majority of the vote nearly everywhere, and even carried many of the places where he was expected to be weak — like Montgomery County, Md., or Greenwich, Conn., or Lancaster, Pa…

He was expected to fare well, but he beat the pre-election polls everywhere. He was at 48 percent in the final Pennsylvania polls; he won 57 percent. He was at 49 percent in the Maryland polls (43 percent excluding the generally dubious polls from A.R.G.); he won 54 percent…

His best state, as expected, was Rhode Island. But he won 64 percent of the vote, not the 57 percent that the model anticipated. Mr. Trump was favored to win big, at 50 and 51 percent, in Delaware and Connecticut; he won 61 and 58 percent.

Maryland and Pennsylvania seemed more challenging for Mr. Trump. The model had him at 41 and 45 percent. He easily outperformed those tallies, winning 54 and 57 percent of the vote.

Mr. Trump’s overperformance was broad — spanning nearly every kind of county across all of the states in play…

That leaves two key states: Indiana and California.

Mr. Trump would easily win if he carried both states. He might not even need Indiana if he maintains the loyalty of the unbound delegates who said they would vote for the winner of their district in Pennsylvania, or simply if he wins big in California.

And after Tuesday night, a big win in California looks quite possible.

Tuesday’s results were a disaster for the “Never Trump” movement that hoped to at least stop him from winning the nomination on the first ballot at the Republican convention. Demographic groups that had slowed the Trump express hopped aboard on Tuesday. He won a majority of women voters in every state; he won evangelical Christians, voters with college degrees, voters of all incomes and so on. [emphasis mine] Even in the event Trump stumbles badly in Indiana next Tuesday — unlikely, given that recent polls show him leading — two recent polls out of California give him 49 percent of the vote, and Trump has gone from consistently underperforming polls to outperforming them. Combined with expected wins in West Virginia and New Jersey, Trump’s path to a delegate majority is easier than ever.

Sure, he might still far short, but #NeverTrump currently appears more tenuous than ever.